PubliCalendar: Waterfront, Unions, and Car Sharing

Today's picks for civic nerds.

Tonight's public hearing on the minimum wage is co-sponsored by the city council's Select Committee on Minimum Wage and Income Inequality (a committee set up by the council to make the process more public) as well as the mayor's closed-door group, the Income Inequality Advisory Committee.

The hearing will involve mostly public comments, so arrive early, sign up, and use your two minutes to tell the committee why a $15 minimum wage is important for Seattle (or not wise, if that's the way you lean).

The Seattle Department of Transportation is hosting a waterfront week in early March. Check out the latest waterfront designs; explore an exhibit of architecture, art, and design from across the world; or just bring the kids for a family day at Hillclimb Plaza.

"You cannot understand what's been happening in terms of inequality in this country without accounting for the dramatic decline of organized labor," said Jake Rosenfeld recently on MSNBC's The Cycle.

This is the thesis of the new book, What Unions No Longer Do, by Rosenfeld, a UW associate professor of sociology. When unions were strong in America, he argues, they reduced inequality across the board—unions worked for their members to have better wages, and employers of non-union workers kept wages high to keep their employees from unionizing. Unions reduced political and racial inequality and helped workers to reach the middle class, and without them Americans are struggling.

We've talked a lot about ridesharing on the blog lately, but another green transportation option that hasn't gotten as much attention is car sharing.

The sharing of actual cars (as opposed to just rides) reduces the number of cars in Seattle and makes living carless (or car-lite) in the city easy. Zipcar and car2go are the ones we've all seen, but there are also options for car-owning individuals to rent out their personal vehicles, whether for a ride downtown or a weekend trip.

Transportation Choices Coalition's forum on car sharing will cover Seattle's car-sharing options and how they meet different drivers' needs, as well as the future of car sharing and its potential role in a greener, less congested city.